


finding joy in duty

by gallpall



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Also what if cristabel kissed pyrrha :), Canaan-typical polyamory, F/F, Messy poly dynamics, Rope Bondage, Rough Sex, What if the og lyctor pairs fucked around before they found out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:48:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27820993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallpall/pseuds/gallpall
Summary: Cristabel had explained it. Mercy had been asked to relinquish her body—her necromantic inclination, too, though she had already thrown that rule to the dogs at the earliest possible convenience—to Pyrrha Dve, who was going to somehow, in some perverted way, make a point about devotion that Mercy had not already considered and put into practice a hundred times over. Mercy, of course, doubted this very much.(or: Pyrrha teaches Mercy a lesson at Cristabel's behest.)
Relationships: Mercymorn the First/Cristabel Oct, Mercymorn the First/Pyrrha Dve
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	finding joy in duty

**Author's Note:**

> cw: consensual rough sex, rope bondage, complex power dynamics, foreshadowing of character deaths. intended to take place early on, before all the pairs are at canaan, but at the point where they comprehend what lyctorhood will mean. they just haven't processed it yet and are fuckin' before the fall.

“She’s not going to like this idea.”

From the hallway, Mercymorn calibrated the voice as being her cavalier’s, and despite the words themselves, it rang more delighted than distraught. Cristabel wasn’t speaking to _her_. There were a total of five disciples in Canaan missing from the amatory affair she was so joyfully skipping out on. One of them was herself; this came as no surprise to anyone. She believed there were better ways to spend an evening than counting vital internal organs to distract herself from an abundance of external ones. Within the walls of Canaan House tonight were the hearts of ten Resurrected souls and one John. She pretended not to know that six of those hearts were probably, more or less, beating in tandem.

Another soul who’d avoided the orgy was Alfred, for understandable reasons. So perhaps Cristabel was speaking to Alfred, but it was far more likely he was buried in a book about swordsmanship—good for him, very chaste—than engaging in any. Besides, Cristabel wouldn’t take up that sing-song tone with him. And the only person less interested than Mercy in sharing fountains of spit with fellow scholars was Gideon. He and Cristabel had never quite clicked even as sparring partners, so thankfully, she could rule that sod out entirely. Cassiopeia and her cavalier were abroad on some excursion that Mercy expected would find them both scrambled to bits the way their bedroom always was.

By the time Mercy reached the practice room, she had done the math. In truth, it was not _just_ math – Cristabel, like many disciples, had always gravitated toward a certain cavalier. Mercy didn’t have to hear that composed voice, didn’t have to see that thunderbolt face, close-cropped hair and scarlet-hued uniform to know—

Pyrrha Dve was gathering herself from the floor, kicking her ankles free from the winding bolas of Cristabel’s net. Despite the sweat at her brow and her ruffled collar—which she was now re-adjusting, God forbid the Commander let herself look tousled—there was a smile on her lips as polished as the sweat tinging her cheeks. She spoke, as collected as ever despite her exertion.

“Cristabel Oct, your persuasive gifts outweigh any agent I have ever trained. Trentham itself cowers at your influence. And it is _your_ idea, isn’t it, dear?”

Tall, limber, amber-eyed Cristabel bowed to the ground and recovered Pyrrha’s rapier. She twirled its pommel and handed it back in one elegant lope that closed the distance between the two cavaliers. Mercy watched from afar in silent scorn as Cristabel craned her neck ever so slightly, cupped the curve of Pyrrha’s scar-worn jaw, and placed a kiss and a few lyrical words near her ear.

“Of course it is.”

Mercy crossed her arms, undetected and now _terribly_ scandalized. Her protector, her angel, the belle of her life, the cavalier worth the entire Resurrection and its toils—was planting her lips on the cheek of the most notorious warrior-spy Mercy had ever known. Mercy didn’t squeal or shout like she wanted to at such an affront; Cristabel’s safety and apparent victory kept those behaviors at bay. She did _Huff_ , though, and so the pair finally broke their indecorous salute to acknowledge her presence.

Cristabel slid to her necromancer’s side, showering her with questions about the fruits of her evening, and within moments Mercy was reassured that her cavalier had done nothing wrong, ever, in her life. Pyrrha sheathed her rapier—lip bitten with an amusement she did not bother to conceal—and left the room with very few words.

“If you’ll excuse me, most holy Keepers, I have pressing business with Gideon.” As Pyrrha marched past them, Mercy noted begrudgingly that the woman stunk of intimacy and ash.

The petty jealousy from that kiss, the anxiety over Cristabel having sparred without an arbitrator, and the lingering frustration about that _repellant_ party Mercy hadn’t even attended – this all took her less than a few hours to recover from. Cristabel made certain that her necromancer coped with those kinds of fleeting emotions.

That night Cristabel peered up at Mercy from between her legs, and Mercy didn’t need to look to feel the devotion that burned in those eyes. She _felt_ it, just as she felt Cristabel’s lips lift and cajole her like with evensong into ecstasy and sleep—no synaptic interference required.

It was her love that cured Mercy of all ails; a love that grounded her when she felt she might flit away to commit atrocities out of animated spite. The spite was still there, of course—but Cristabel nudged up to and clung to it with a swanlike grace.

Despite incessant prompting, it was several months before Mercy untangled the particulars of Cristabel’s _idea._

_***_

_Untangled_ was perhaps not the proper terminology.

Mercymorn later came to realize this while Cristabel wound her tightly in scarlet rope, naked atop a workstation in the Second’s undeniably tidy quarters. Mercy had never spent time in this section of Canaan House, and she had promptly decided it was an absurd and impractical space to get any work done. On the one hand, the lighting in that lab was _clinical_. It felt nothing like daylight and it illuminated all her angles. That square, segmented room would have her feeling out of place even with clothing on.

Worse still, if Mercy squinted, she could see beyond the training floor and up those wooden steps, where meticulously completed crossword puzzles littered Gideon’s nightstand. She did not find this erotic in any way. Fortunately, Gideon the First was not currently _on_ the First. That was a condition Mercy had made early in these negotiations. Still, the reminder of his authority and his strangely marital bond with his cavalier was annoying in its own rite.

The rope itself, which Cristabel had picked up off a shelf in that very lab as if she knew where to find it already, seemed more suited for traversing space terrain than it did for this kind of bondage. At first it felt restrictive, fettering in a way that Cristabel’s regular tie-ups never seemed to be. Yet the setup was hardly complex compared to their usual routine. The Eighth house founders would take turns suspending one another with intricate netting from Cristabel’s arsenal or dazzling silks imported from the Third; they had engaged in every manner of bondage to strengthen their own bonds – but at least for Mercy, it had only ever been the two of them.

Today, Mercy lay on her back as Cristabel delicately wove her arms behind her head, secured her wrists to the table legs, and drew her knees up to anchor them apart. Her ankles were tethered to each corner and Cristabel wrapped several bands of rope beneath the bench to hold her torso snugly against the laminate tabletop. There was no element of distress or discomfort, no real risks aside from the dire one posed to Mercy’s dignity. It was simply the context in which she was being rigged—an unfamiliar location, with the promise of an unfamiliar partner—that had her on edge.

She had been talked into this over the span of weeks, assured it was for a higher purpose, that an arrangement outside of their oath would have some bearing on their own research and the saintly, inevitable union they strived toward. This did not mean Mercy was convinced, or that she had to acquiesce with poise – she fidgeted and fussed at Cristabel about circulation as if she couldn’t adjust her own vascular system beneath her bindings; she bickered lightly about how this had nothing to do with all the theorems they could be devising and everything to do with Cristabel’s weird proclivity toward divine punishment, and what had Mercy even done _wrong_ in the last century?

“It’s not our past I’m concerned with, M. It’s everything to come,” Cristabel had warbled back while pinning Mercy’s braid neatly behind the arch of her neck. Mercy was satisfied enough with that answer. She was not satisfied, however, with how long it was taking the Trentham headmistress to show herself in her own quarters.

Cristabel had apparently been given a key to this room. Mercy had yet to ask _why_ that was, for fear of an honest answer. Cristabel was always honest. But after half an hour of Cristabel at her side - stroking her temples and rubbing her legs, calling her placatory nicknames like _Dawn_ \- Mercy began to protest again as the peach fuzz on her arms stood on end from static and nerves alike.

“Where _is_ she, Cristabel, it’s not even like her to be late!! Do you know what she does to operatives who don’t report from cover on time?”

“Mmm, likely the same fate we would allot an errant Templar.”

“Precisely, Cris! She would _burn_ them!! And so why-ever it is okay when _she_ —”

That massive black door banged open and Mercy finished her own sentence with a startled shriek. She would have instinctually jolted up from the table if her bindings did not prevent it.

Mercy turned her head to the side to see Commander Pyrrha Dve stride into the room like a forest fire. All in one premeditated sequence the cavalier shoved her weapon against the far wall, put out a cigarette, shrugged her jacket onto an armchair, and sat down on it to remove her breeches. To Mercy’s dismay the weapon had not been a _rapier_ , but one of those archaic rifles _._ Mercy hated to think what she even did with that. Polish it like a useless toy, perhaps, or something otherwise inconsequential. Pyrrha was always a bit flamboyant with her antiquities.

The Commander seemed intent on undressing completely before acknowledging her guests. Mercy was still in a state of flushed fury and said nothing of this inhospitality – something about being tied to a table in a gunslinger’s bedroom had her more reticent than usual. She felt her stomach dip briefly as Cristabel fluttered away from the lab floor, moving light as a feather in comparison to the other cavalier, whose shoulder width alone shadowed Cristabel’s lithe frame. Cristabel then asked Pyrrha, of all _accursed_ things:

“How was your day?”

“Sublimely shitty,” Pyrrha blurted. When Cristabel responded with a pouty and apologetic noise, the Commander’s neck snapped to attention and she seemed to drop the attitude all at once.

“Sorry dear, I shouldn’t be so crude,” Pyrrha added in a much more appropriate tone—still inappropriate though, because it was _coy,_ and Mercy was _right there._

“It’s all right. I know it must be… difficult.”

“We’ll get over it. Always have. Always will. Won’t be this way forever.” Pyrrha sounded gruff, dutiful.

“Not for any of us,” Cristabel replied with a glee that confounded Mercy. She didn’t quite follow the conversation, but she did not like it. She also did not like being ignored while in the nude.

“ _Ahe-m_ , I do so hate to interrupt you both, but if you’re going to have this pleasant _chatter_ , could you maybe do it elsewhere, or— _or_ give me the benefit of my limbs so I can put up a fair fight against your rigamarole?”

Pyrrha ignored Mercy and spoke to Cristabel in a loud whisper.

“Weren’t you going to gag her for me?”

Mercy groaned with aggravation. Cristabel clapped a hand to her mouth with a petite gasp, like she’d completely forgotten until just now. Mercy had been _counting_ on that lapse in memory and hoping that Pyrrha would let it slip by, but admittedly, she should have known better, because the Second had never let _anything_ slip by.

“No trouble. Easily remedied,” Pyrrha said, now playing with Cristabel’s hair idly. Mercy’s skin felt hot. For all her bodily knowledge, she could not figure out what mechanism had initiated this. She willed it to stop, but the heat rose again. Pyrrha continued: “And you’re sure about this, Cristabel Oct? You want this for your girl? For you both?”

Cristabel nodded, and Mercy watched as Pyrrha Dve clutched her cavalier’s entire face and kissed her – hard, passionate, and with intent. It was a heavy, long kiss, the kind Mercy knew had been occurring between them but refused to acknowledge on any emotional level. When Pyrrha opened one eye to glance at Mercy smugly across the room, Mercy turned up her prudish little nose to avoid eye contact.

“Yes, alright, you have made it abundantly clear you’re _involved_. I suspected as much. Congratulations! What a _clever_ announcement! Though if this is your plan to rile me it is rather juvenile. We can hurry it along now, yes? Chop-chop?”

Cristabel and Pyrrha broke apart halfway through this rant to share a look that was unfortunately too distant for Mercy to scrutinize. Cristabel slowly descended those steps and returned to Mercy’s side, almost quivering, though Mercy was unsure from what.

“You know this is about more than that, M. We can discuss it later. Behave now, for me.” Mercy wanted to say _No no Crissy, I think we ought to discuss this_ now _, seeing as you’ve made such a show of the matter,_ but she could only whine as Cristabel belatedly fitted the gag into her mouth, kissed her squarely on the forehead and bounded for that enormous black door. All the while, Mercy trilled irritably around the gag, attempting to bite at it and finding, horrifically, that her molars couldn’t even gnash.

Pyrrha was rinsing her arms and face in that big metal sink and listing off rules, though Mercy only caught the tail end of it over her own tantrum. Cristabel was gone from the room, gone from her grasp, and so Mercy choked off her own whining, unwilling to let her dependence be known to anyone else.

“…but I presume Cristabel explained this ahead of time?” Pyrrha finished. Mercy nodded, eyes narrowed into slits.

Cristabel _had_ explained it. Mercy had been asked to relinquish her body—her necromantic inclination, too, though she had already thrown that rule to the dogs at the earliest possible convenience—to Pyrrha Dve, who was going to somehow, in some perverted way, make a point about _devotion_ that Mercy had not already considered and put into practice a hundred times over. Mercy, of course, doubted this very much.

“Fantastic,” Pyrrha said rather procedurally, and began to circle the workbench, tracing her own jawline and smiling periodically. Pyrrha was a little sweaty, a lot naked, and very intimidating. 

“You are fearfully and wonderfully made, you know. I cannot fathom why you don’t show yourself more often.” Mercy tried to laugh in reply, but it came out more like a muffled squeak. “Oh, I _know_ ,” Pyrrha bemoaned. 

“You _dislike_ the sexy parties. I haven’t been keen on them myself since Augustine – well, since Augustine.” This was the first thing Mercy had agreed with Pyrrha on today. 

“I prefer to work one-on-one.”

In one swift move, Pyrrha lept onto the table using each of Mercy’s knees as support, pressing them down and further apart. Mercy steeled herself as Pyrrha loomed over her and showed more interest in the integrity of the rope than her figure. She found herself draining the pink from her cheeks at a rate she was probably not going to be able to maintain.

“Tell me, Mercymorn the First. When your cavalier is beyond reach, how does it feel? When you cannot access her soul, when she cannot comfort yours… are you _empty_?”

Mercy found this question not only rhetorical but _invasive_ , so she remained perfectly still and furious. Pyrrha abruptly slapped her across the face, and Mercy squealed as a horrible red welt burned in its wake. She yearned to mend it but thought of how that would stain her pride – and Cristabel’s.

“If you keep ignoring me, I will leave your entire body as red as this rope.” Mercy nodded then, utterly outmatched in both strength and circumstance.

“Good. This is whatever you want to make it, Mercymorn. It doesn’t have to be fucking difficult.” Pyrrha reached above Mercy’s head to grasp at her fingers, engulfing them completely in her fists. Her face dropped lower, breath a smoldering fusion of nicotine and—sugary gloss. Mercy’s gut lurched with the realization that she was smelling her own cavalier’s mouth on Pyrrha’s.

“I’ll ask you again. What use are these fingers without your cavalier to wield them?” Mercy only made a sad, dejected noise, fingertips flitting in Pyrrha’s grip, and it took every bit of discipline she had not to administer a light sedative into the woman’s brachial artery.

“Correct. So how do you think I feel when my necromancer – my Gideon, who set my heart ablaze from the moment I met him, who has not let that flame subside for a _hundred_ years – how do you think I feel when he is sent off without me at his side?”

Mercy had, up until this point, done her very best to _never_ think about Pyrrha and Gideon, Gideon and Pyrrha; the sick, _matrimonial_ connection they cultivated, that untouchable, forceful energy they exuded. She would often complain to Cristabel about their heavy presence as a pair, and only now did it occur to her—only when bound and bleating beneath a ravenous Pyrrha Dve, who would never be so rough, so depraved as this with Gideon around to match her in barbarity—that perhaps there was some essential balancing act to their union.

“I don’t even like to remain in this study without him home. It becomes hollow to me. And yet _I_ hear—” Pyrrha feigned tenderness now, the back of her hand pressing into Mercy’s cheek where it was still sore and burning – “yet I hear _you_ arranged for him to be gone. Is that so?”

Mercy panted hard, _crossly_ , and fantasized about how she might spit in Pyrrha’s face. She leaned into her touch despite how it stung and nodded in affirmation. Tears of frustration begged at her eyes and she dried them instantly; she wicked the moisture from her own mouth as saliva formed around the gag, she cooled the warmth between her legs before Pyrrha would ever have a chance to discover it. She couldn’t keep this pace, but she was going to try.

Mercy expected Pyrrha to become furious at this admission _,_ that she might ravage her and then leave her for dead, that Cristabel would have to sweep up all her pieces and that Mercy would get to say _I told you this was a foolish idea, my angel_ with her dying breaths. Instead, Pyrrha breathed a hot sigh of relief, let her body fall flush against Mercy’s, and kissed up her jawline like a woman starved.

At that, Mercy gasped and furrowed her brow in equal parts confusion and desire, while Pyrrha’s mouth plotted hard, heavy marks against her neck and she finally gave up all hope of preserving her complexion and denying her arousal. Pyrrha was very warm; she must have been training before this, and the mingling of their body heat felt repulsively _nice_. She tested the rope and tried to shift, wanting to move in rhythm with Pyrrha, whose only response was to laugh.

“Have more faith in your cav, you _terrible_ girl,” and Mercy wailed at that implication, that Pyrrha would dare to examine her belief in Cristabel—and call her such a diminutive name while she was at it.

“The thing is, Mercymorn,” and Pyrrha sat up, her muscles fluvial and rippling in a way that Mercy desperately attempted to disregard. “I’ve always _preferred_ bad girls.”

Mercy blinked a few times and a tear slipped from each eye as she twitched her hips upward, insofar as she could, and her tied-up knees shook involuntarily. One of Pyrrha’s hands dipped between her legs now, the other planted firmly between her breasts to pin her chest with a force that threatened to cave her entire sternal region. Mercy sputtered around the gag as Pyrrha unceremoniously hitched two fingers inside of her, and thanked herself for having permitted her own arousal. Mercy trembled—just the once—and was completely silent for the first time since she’d been gagged. She looked up at Pyrrha across the table and locked eyes with her as if to say, _and your point is?_

“You’re pretty _good_ , really. Your cavalier too. Do you know what your Cristabel calls me?” Mercy winced from the question and the pressure that thrummed inside her. “She calls me _devil_ ,” Pyrrha guffawed, and curled her fingers in Mercy to the point it vaguely hurt. Mercy felt her pulse drop down to her pelvis and she shrunk away from the feeling, biting her tongue behind the gag with a shiver.

“As though for all her worship, all her adoration of you and of our God – she is _still_ tempted by the flesh of others. Why do you think that is?”

Mercy had tried her very best—and yes, she was sensing a pattern here—to _never_ think of Pyrrha and Cristabel, Cristabel and Pyrrha; who frankly, had never hid a thing except their shame. It wasn’t the sex, the sin, it wasn’t even the irresponsible sparring that irked her. It was her own _failure,_ that for all of Mercy’s devotion, Cristabel Oct still sought fulfillment outside their oath.

“God has gifted you with necromancy. Cristabel has only a sword, a sword she will carry for you until your inevitable end. When you take from her flesh, when you strip her soul bit by bit: Do you understand what you do, Mercymorn?”

With that query, Pyrrha’s fingers caught on a ridge that made Mercy buck helplessly and cry out. Pyrrha growled in response and leaned down to tuck her skull into Mercy’s clavicles, thrusting hard against the tightening grip of her cunt.

“One day you’ll have nothing left of her.”

When Mercy came it felt like she was being pitted from the inside, like Pyrrha’s hand and those horrible words had torn something out of her that she had not known to exist—a guilt, a fear she had refused to acknowledge. The only comfort she felt as those fingers left her came from the tongue now trailing down her torso, as Pyrrha began to use her mouth for something more favorable than taunting.

Pyrrha didn’t hum against her the way Cristabel might: instead she drew long, heady breaths and licked at Mercy’s cunt as if she might find all of the Eighth’s knowledge and virtue inside of it. Mercy knew better, though—Pyrrha Dve was a con-woman. Even the God who resurrected her would admit as such. Unfortunately, Pyrrha was _adept_ at her craft, and as hands wrapped around her inner thighs Mercy let her head loll back against the table, salt beginning to dry on her face just in time for new tears to form. Pyrrha lingered there for some time, and between them the only noises were wet, arduous breaths, and the occasional _scriiiitch_ of Mercy’s toes grasping desperately at the edges of the table. Mercy became accustomed to the quiet, and resigned herself to think of her cavalier.

She thought of iniquitous, _clever_ Cristabel who had fastened her to this bench and insisted that she let Pyrrha show her a good time. And it was only then that Mercy caught herself grinning, despite the strain of the gag in her mouth and the tongue against her clit, and she began to _giggle_.

Mercy was a perfect fool for Cristabel after all. Pyrrha was wrong to doubt this; she was wrong to doubt their commitment and comprehension of its meaning. _One flesh, one end;_ Pyrrha would recite her own poetry like scripture, as if she and Gideon hadn’t just made that part of the oath up, and as if it had ever meant anything beyond sentiment. For the first time Mercy realized the depth of Pyrrha’s own codependency, and her pity audibly manifested as mirth. Between her legs, Pyrrha seemed pleased by this and continued to work until Mercy’s laughter once again became a series of stifled sobs. Pyrrha surfaced with shining, satisfied lips and a smile that said, _what next?_

They carried on like that for at least an hour – Pyrrha would antagonize Mercy about her pledge to Cristabel, she would drag her to the edge of anger and affront and then yank her back with orgasms that tore through Mercy’s body like an inferno. Mercy felt her larynx burn with all the words it could not form; all the miserable little noises that creaked out instead, the air that seeped between teeth she did not have the pleasure of grinding. When Pyrrha removed the gag from her mouth it was only to replace it with a hard, oblong object that left her choking and sputtering, and Mercy would have bit down on that too if it were not for her mounting exhaustion. It felt as though several millenia had passed before Pyrrha withdrew that toy from her mouth and asked with an intense finality:

“Whose end will you honor in service of our God?”

Mercy’s response came in four strangled, wheezing syllables, but they stirred more conviction in her than anything ever had in her long and tidy life. She recited them not in hope of salvation, but with something altogether unfamiliar: _duty_.

Mercy felt herself fading in and out of consciousness then, idly repeating those syllables until she was afraid she might forget what they meant. _Cristabel Oct._ _Cristabel Oct._ Eventually she heard that vast, gloomy door unlock and someone with a much lighter touch began to untangle her bindings. She watched through half-lidded eyes as Pyrrha briefed Cristabel on their work, as she boasted of her conquest through a lit cigarette in the way only she would. Cristabel attended to Mercy while praying under her breath, and Mercy smiled weakly at the woman who was nothing if not devout.

As all the rope fell to ruin, what Mercy once would have considered freedom instead felt like fear. She whimpered as Cristabel lifted her body and carried her from that study. Cristabel flinched as Mercy’s fingers traced the back of her neck, as if her necromancer might siphon her to oblivion or disperse her cells on the spot — but Mercy only held her, crying into her curls and pleading that she might never leave.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to darlingofdots and liveonthesun for beta-ing and everyone else who cheered me on through this ridiculous prompt, which i ended up taking sorta seriously for no good reason.


End file.
